The Day the Earth was Born TV - The Universe TV - Star Trek: The Next Generation TV - Hilaire Belloc - Fyodor Dostoyevsky - David Darling - Rene Dubos - Louis Pasteur - Iain Probert
Imagine if our planet’s eventful history was compressed into the twenty-four hours of a single day. At midnight the infant Earth was born ... At sixteen minutes past midnight a cataclysmic collision created our moon ... Then just before one o’clock in the morning the scene was set for ... the origin of life ... It took more than seven hours for all the iron to be removed from the oceans till one p.m. in the afternoon ... Over the next eight hours the microbes raised the level of oxygen ... It took only the last three hours of our twenty-four day for all the other life-forms on our planet to evolve. The first multicellular life emerged at six minutes past nine in the evening. The first fish at twenty-two minutes past nine ... By ten to eleven in the evening dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The first primates appeared at twenty to midnight. And with just thirty seconds to go, the first humans made their appearance. Tiny microbes had ruled the planet for over three billion years – two-thirds of the history of the Earth. The Day the Earth was Born, Channel 4 2002
Microbes reigned supreme for much of Earth’s history. They revolutionised the planet and paved the way for a myriad of more sophisticated species. But it was land that gave life-forms a new home. The Universe s1e6: Spaceship Earth, History 2007
Commander Riker has become infected by an unidentified microbe. Star Trek: The Next Generation s2e22: Shades of Gray, Picard’s log
The Microbe is so very small,
You cannot make him out at all.
But many sanguine people hope
To see him down a microscope.
His jointed tongue that lies beneath
A hundred curious rows of teeth;
His seven tufted tails with lots
Of lovely pink and purple spots
On each of which a pattern stands,
Composed of forty separate bands;
His eyebrows of a tender green;
All these have never yet been seen
But Scientists, who ought to know,
Assure us they must be so ...
Oh! let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about! Hilaire Belloc, More Beasts For Worse Children, 1897
Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and wit ... Men attacked by them at once became mad and furious. Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1821-81, The Brothers Karamazov
A bewildering assortment of (mostly microscopic) life-forms has been found thriving in what were once thought to be uninhabitable regions of our planet. These hardy creatures have turned up in deep, hot underground rocks, around scalding volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean, in the desiccated, super-cold Dry Valleys of Antarctica, in places of high acid, alkaline, and salt content, and below many meters of polar ice ... Some deep-dwelling, heat-loving microbes, genetic studies suggest, are among the oldest species known, hinting that not only can life thrive indefinitely in what appear to us totally alien environments, it may actually originate in such places. David Darling
Eradication of microbial disease is a will-o’-the-wisp; pursuing it leads into a morass of hazy biological concepts and half-truths. Rene Dubos, Man Adapting, 1965
These microscopic organisms form an entire world composed of species, families and varieties whose history, which has barely begun to be written, is already fertile in prospects and findings of the highest importance. The names of these organisms are very numerous and will have to be defined and in part discarded. The word microbe which has the advantage of being shorter and carrying a more general meaning, and of having been approved by my illustrious friend, M Littré, the most competent linguist in France, is one we will adopt. Louis Pasteur
Twas the night before Christmas
And deep in the lab
Something came crawling
From under a slab
it crawled to the agar
To take a peek
At all the bacteria
Lying asleep
it slithered through the jelly
(as icky things do)
Depositing slime
And gobbets of goo
Moving on to the ‘scope’
With a single aim
To spell out a message
Addressed to Elaine
Dear Human, it wrote
With some ink from a gland
Forgot your card,
Please understand
Having studied your kind
And obtained my degree
On a theses titled
‘Humans and their relations with me’
I find that you pry
Into all that we do
Without recognising
We need privacy too!
You took photos
of each of my chums
All of my aunties
And Each of my sons
You sold these photos to some TV show
Keeping the money
Isn’t that so?
If you use our photos, to give others a fright
You really don’t know us
For it is simply not right!
Now that we’ve informed you
Please make amends
Or we’ll consult our lawyers
Messrs S Bends
We'll put an end to your scary sights
By wearing bright colours
And thick woolly tights
Viruses and bacteria
Will aim to be cute
And all of your ventures
Will go down the chute
But heck, as it’s Christmas
We’ll give you a break
Here is one scary picture
And it isn’t a fake!
Out of pouch, it took with a sigh,
Its favourite photo
Of Elaine’s right eye! Iain Probert, A Christmas Ode for the Scientifically Minded, to sister Elaine Humphrey after her photos used on TV show X-Files 1997